Enjoy sex and intimacy in your marriage

The Life of Freedom

I have to share these … its Galatians 5 (MSG). As I was reading my bible today morning I learnt so much from this chapter. Please read it and I hope the Lord will minister to your heart.

1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

2-3I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. 4-6I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

7-10You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.

13-15It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

16-18My counsel is this: Live freely, vigorous and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are opposing, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time:

repetitive, loveless, cheap sex;

a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage;

frantic and joyless grabs for happiness;

trinket gods;

magic-show religion;

paranoid loneliness;

cutthroat competition;

all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants;

a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved;

divided homes and divided lives;

small-minded and lopsided pursuits;

the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival;

uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions;

ugly parodies of community.

I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

22-23But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—

things like affection for others,

exuberance about life,

serenity

we develop a willingness to stick with things,

a sense of compassion in the heart,

a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.

we find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

I would like you to look at the bullet points and search your soul and ask God to help you live according to His will and be a fruit in a beautiful orchard.